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Monday, June 27, 2016

It's Official - Lucas Museum to Be Built in a State Far, Far Away

In the midst of the global news of the Brexit last Friday, another, more local, piece of surprising news came out. George Lucas officially announced that his propose Lucas Museum of Narrative Art would be dropping their plans to build on Chicago's lakefront in favor of building it in California (via Chicago Tribune):

The Lucas Museum saga in Chicago has ended.

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas announced Friday he is abandoning plans to build the project in Chicago, ending months of debate and controversy. Lucas, who wanted to build a museum showcasing his art collection along the city's lakefront, said in a statement he would shift his focus to trying to build the museum in California.

The Lucas Museum proposal has been on hold since November 2014, when the group Friends of the Parks filed a federal lawsuit blocking construction.

"No one benefits from continuing their seemingly unending litigation to protect a parking lot," filmmaker George Lucas said. "The actions initiated by Friends of Parks and their recent attempts to extract concessions from the city have effectively overridden approvals received from numerous democratically elected bodies of government."

While it seemed like this move back to California was a real possibility, it also seemed like there were some backroom negotiations going on to make this happen.

This development sorta feels like how we felt after Chicago didn't get the 2016 Olympics. Not saying they're similar situations, just saying right now it feels like Chicago is losing out similar to how it felt way back in 2008. In hindsight, Chicago not getting the bid seems like a blessing - maybe we'll feel the same way when this museum finally gets built in California.

Anyway, as you can imagine there are some pretty interesting reads on the fallout. Here are some of the articles that caught our eye: